Minister threatens to demolish substandard houses, revokes contracts

The Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Ahmed Dangiwa has emphasized that the construction of Renewed Hope Projects must be based on contractual terms to ensure durability, warning that he will not hesitate to revoke the contract of any substandard work.

Dangiwa stated this when inspecting the ongoing construction of 1,500 and 500 houses in Kano, built via Public Private Partnership and Budgetary provision, respectively, urging the developers to maintain high standards and deliver quality work.

He said, “We will not tolerate any substandard work found on any Renewed Hope Project Site anywhere in the country. We are very committed to ensuring that the houses that we build and the infrastructure is of good quality.”

The Minister said that all the developers and contractors on Renewed their contracts we will not tolerate poor quality work from any developer or contractor. We will first demolish the structure and the Contractor will have to rebuild as per standard or we revoke the contract entire.

“We also want the developers to adhere to the timeline and finish within two to three months to give Nigerians value for money, and the government will not compromise on standard.”

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Similarly, he explained the economic impact of housing constructions, including job creation for masons, labourers, artisans, food vendors, blocks, and other building materials suppliers, saying, the chain effect of construction work is significant to creating a positive environment.

“Our plan is to build seven Renewed Hope Cities, one in each geo-political zone and FCT. We currently ongoing construction for 2,000 units in Kano, 3,112 units in FCT, and 2,000 in Lagos while other locations are scheduled to come on stream very soon,” he added.

The Minister therefore directed Federal Controllers and assigned Ministry monitoring personnel to ensure close supervision of work and escalation of all quality infringements for action to be taken while also warning them not to compromise their offices.